Social Protection Programs for Africa's Drylands

del Ninno, Carlo ; Coll-Black, Sarah ; Fallavier, Pierre

Washington, DC:World Bank

关键词: SOCIAL PROTECTION;    LIVELIHOODS;    SAFETY NETS;    VULNERABILITY;    CASH TRANSFERS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/978-1-4648-0846-3
RP-ID  :  107854

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Social Protection Programs for Africa’s Drylands explores the role of social protection in promotingthe well-being and prosperity of people living in dryland regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, with aspecific focus on the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. Based on a review of recent experience, it arguesthat social protection policies and programs have an important role in promoting the resilience ofthe people residing in these areas. Social protection programs, when well designed and carefullyimplemented at scale, can reduce vulnerability to droughts and other shocks and promote copingcapacity.If present trends continue, by 2030 dryland regions of East and West Africa will be home to anestimated 429 million people, up to 24 percent of whom will be living in chronic poverty. Manyothers will depend on livelihood strategies that are sensitive to the shocks that will hit the regionwith increasing frequency and severity, making them vulnerable to falling into transient poverty.Social protection programs will be needed in the drylands to provide support to those unable tomeet their basic needs. Some of these people will require long-term support, while others willrequire periodic short-term support because of income losses due to shocks (for example, cropfailure following a drought) or as a result of lifecycle changes (for example, loss of a breadwinner).Safety net programs can increase resilience in the short term by improving coping capacity ofvulnerable households. Rapidly scalable safety nets that provide cash, food, or other resources toshock-affected households can allow them to recover from unexpected shocks. Scaling up anexisting safety net program can be far less expensive than relying on appeals for humanitarianassistance to meet urgent needs.Social protection programs can increase resilience over the longer term by reducing sensitivity toshocks of vulnerable households especially if combined with other development programs. Providingpredictable support to chronically poor households and enabling them to invest in productiveassets and access basic social services can effectively reduce these households’ sensitivity to futureshocks, help them participate in the growth process, and take advantage of the investments made inagricultural and pastoralist activities proposed in the drylands.